What do you not like about remote work?

It's not quite mainstream...yet. This means that despite many companies being "remote friendly", they aren't very well equipped to support their remote teams.

I was very lucky with Envato in that a couple of the early remoters before me really advocated hard for Envato to be a remote first company, and the engineering staff wanted to drive that support.

In the last 5 years, this space has started to expand. However, many companies still aren't interested in investing in remote work support and would rather invest in getting talent to come to wherever they have a physical office space.

Jacob is a Site Reliability Engineer who believes in asynchronous communication and bullet journaling - learn how he maximizes his daily "deep work" time.

I have experienced bouts of loneliness where I can't seem to reach the coworker I need via Slack and have no insight into where they are. While not overwhelming, this feeling can sometimes chill the sunny disposition that the remote work life instills.

Furthermore, when you are on a team that is failing to build rapport due to geographic distribution, the distance feels that much more multiplied. Something as simple as whiteboard collaboration becomes a much bigger chore.

Easily, the biggest trap that's easy to fall into is working past traditional hours. You've never left the office, right?

Too often, I've neglected home errands or exercise to squeeze in "just one more hour". Before you know it, one becomes four. Is this behavior exclusive to remote work? No, but remote work definitely enables it.

For Mark, avoiding distractions and sticking to regular hours are perhaps the hardest parts of being a freelancer - learn his secrets to achieving a good workflow.

Working remotely can be isolating. I’m an introvert, and even for me the silence can get to be a bit too much. It helps to have someone else in the space with you: a spouse, significant other or another co-worker.

It’s important to make connections, so I make a point to schedule coffee, hikes or other social things with friends.

Just stepping out once for a coffee midday is a really good way to counter some of that feeling of isolation.

Scott is a designer and developer that's been working remotely since 1998, read his interview to learn how he's been successful

There's a lot to like about remote, but it does require certain adjustments to personalities, habits and expectations.

Loneliness and perceived isolation. Humans are social creatures and - speaking as a lifelong introvert - there is just no substitute for face time.

Since seeing people doesn't happen organically in hallways or shared office spaces, we have to cultivate those opportunities remotely, even if it feels artificial at first.

We organize a variety of these events throughout the month - from small team talks, to company-wide lunch-and-learns & new hire meet-and-greets, to individual coworker "coffees".

I also encourage people to join or form non-work-related channels on Slack. They act as informal clubs, social outlets, and can be a great way to get to know colleagues across the organization.

Information overload. We encourage over-communication and use a variety of tools and services - like email / Slack / Basecamp / Google Docs / et cetera - to distribute it. There is a cost or burden on folks to have to find and retrieve it ("pulling"), so I also encourage folks to push that information out as much as possible.

(Example: "the schedule for X can be found [here]" and "fyi I've just updated the draft for X [here]", then looping in any key members involved.)

Timezones and asynchronous communication, in general, are foreign. Adjust your expectations, embrace the ability to "work async" instead of waiting until someone pops online and thinking you need that information right now.

Work/Life balance. It's easy to "do work" when it's no further than your pocket.